I found a BK-9 relatively local (2 1/2 hours drive) and went to test it out. I must say I loved it and it came home with me. I have wanted 76 keys since I gave up my Korg Pa2X 5/6 years ago, and I must say the low weight will be a blessing to my back, and the Roland key feel is great even towards the back of the keys.

I am looking forward to setting it up over the next days, but would be glad for any tips or pointers that you have already figured out. It's 12 years since I last had a Roland.

Also, no doubt I'll want to set up Performances for different songs I play, editing styles, maybe deselecting some voices and changing part volumes.

I am hoping to set it up like my Pa900 so that my iPad selects the Performance when I open the sheet music in ForScore. That seems to be technically possible from what I have read.

Best place to get help: http://www.roland-arranger.com/index.php/forum
Diki is there.

As some might have notices, I still own the BK-9, too. I sold my BK-7m. I will think about selling again in case the SD40 is available, makes a reliable impression and isn't 700 euros more expensive than what I paid for the BK-9.

A performance includes various settings, not only a style, but also settings about the upper/lower parts/sounds, effects, style parts etc. Midi settings are stored in midi sets outside of the performance, but a performance can be linked to a certain midi set.

As I'm no fan of the click&press wheel, I recommend using the two iPad apps available for the BK-9, performance editor and BK partner.

Regarding the remark about the G70: regarding sounds and styles, BK-9 has everything the G70 had, and much better sounds in addition, with the exception of the lack of an SRX slot. The G70 had advantages in terms of operation and number of live parts.

Just a question, Rosetree: How do the sounds and styles of the BK-9 compare to the BK-7m's? Are they noticeably better? I think you may have mentioned this in the past, but I'm not sure.

From Rosetree's comment: "BK-9 has everything the G70 had, and much better sounds in addition, with the exception of the lack of an SRX slot."



That's too bad. It would have been great to have slots for the SRX expansions. Better yet, it should have had all the sounds of the SRX boards built-in. In your case, however, you have the Integra-7, so it's not a problem.

Thats not entirely true, the G70 also has a vocaliser on board, which is not on the BK-9, also the keybed of the G70 was awesome, i dont know if the same keybed made the BK-9.... and there is more... The G70 had 1bass , 2 left and 3 right hand sounds... Which is still the most of any Arranger out there.... Also the G70 had some nice style features, cover and make-up tools from which atleast 1 didnt make it to the BK-9 and some more smaller features which didnt make the BK9

Stating that the difference is only the SRX slot, falls short by half a mile, and not really fair to the venerable G70 that was way ahead of its time when released...

Of the 1,700 sounds of the BK-9, 1,100 are identical to the BK-7m. The other 600 are a mixture of a few (22) superNatural sounds, maybe 200-300 from the SonicCell, largely identical to Fantom X, and some hundreds from various sources including a few from SRX expansions such as SRX 04 (two string sections). (Note: the 1,100 from BK-7m already contain many from SRX 09 World).
All in all, many good sounds are already included in those 1,100 that are identical to the BK-7m. But the BK-7m has some weaknesses in string sections, acoustic guitars etc. For these weak sounds, the BK-9 has got clearly better alternatives among the additional 600 sounds. I would especially mention better strings (from GW and SRX 04), SuperNatural acoustic guitars, better grand pianos (although the BK-7m ones are already really good, one sounding exactly like SRX 11), and a better choice of brass sounds, too.
So, in total, if you pick the best of the 1,700 BK-9 sounds, the sound quality is considerably better than the BK-7m's.

Thats not entirely true, the G70 also has a vocaliser on board, which is not on the BK-9, also the keybed of the G70 was awesome, i dont know if the same keybed made the BK-9.... and there is more... The G70 had 1bass , 2 left and 3 right hand sounds... Which is still the most of any Arranger out there.... Also the G70 had some nice style features, cover and make-up tools from which atleast 1 didnt make it to the BK-9 and some more smaller features which didnt make the BK9

Stating that the difference is only the SRX slot, falls short by half a mile, and not really fair to the venerable G70 that was way ahead of its time when released...

Thanks for that detailed breakdown.

So, if I understand you correctly, the 1,100 sounds that are identical in both units actually sound better on the BK-9?

Too bad Roland tends to drop good features in new keyboards. As far as sound quality goes, from what I've read, the BK-9 is better, though.

No, the additional 600 sounds make the difference. I think the identical 1,100 sounds really sound identical. I'm not sure if there's a noticeable difference in the effects, I haven't noticed any, but I don't think there's a difference in the sample quality of those 1,100 sounds. (Small surprising exception: the BK-7m even has one tiny advantage: it has two or three so-called "Natural sounds" - a simpler type of "SN" sounds: at least one sax and one trombone. Their pitch bend reacts with natural scales. This feature has been eliminated in these 2 or 3 sounds in the BK-9 probably due to the 22 SN sounds - however these 22 SN sounds don't include such a trombone and a different (worse!) sax.)

Yes, espescially because of the newer samples, supernaturall sounds and 5sfx versus 1 on the G70... Most people agree the bk9 sounds better.

Great to know! So the BK-7m is a very good-sounding arranger, except for those acoustic guitars, unfortunately, which I don't like.

As a side note, some forum members had asked a while ago if the BK-5 was as good as the BK-7. I tried the BK-5 in a store and thought it sounded pretty awful. It does not compare to the BK-7m at all.

Thanks for your response, Rosetree.

I would say: BK-7m is a good-sounding arranger module, but the differences to BK-9 are very audible not only regarding acoustic guitars, but also string sections and somewhat brass sections, and the hundreds of additional sounds from SonicCell and others provide more versatile choices in any sound categories.

For the styles, the difference in sounds plays a smaller role of course. The arrangements are largely the same. For the acoustic guitars in the styles I think there is a difference, even if the BK-9 doesn't makes use of the SN-A guitars as style parts, but it has better acoustic guitars in the ordinary PCM sounds, too.

I just prepared a short live Beethoven symphonic orchestra demo with my BK-9 - the BK-9 sounds amazingly good here, and this is where the BK-7m would be dramatically worse.

Newest one on Youtube.
Direct link is https://youtu.be/m_-oT8B1rV8

Makes the bk9 shine indeed

I would love to hear that with the hall of a cathedrall...

You will laugh, I already got 3 thumbs down for it, there are enough trolls on Youtube, I tell you rating on Youtube are so ridiculous I've long set it to invisible. Hate of classical music, stubborn rejection of certain brands, mutual thumbs up by the hundreds of home players sometimes even for poor renditions. Meanwhile I would be embarrassed to get too many thumbs up.
The reverb: it is already set to long reverb and high level. Even more would make it extremely wet.

the dual display was a killer for the BK9 turned alot of people off..although it does have some very nice features.

Or just have no display and include a 10in attachable tablet with every unit lol

Or just have no display and include a 10in attachable tablet with every unit lol

Or even allow people to attach any touchscreen, ipad(pro), android tablet, windows tablet... Saves money, gives people freedom to attach whatever they want...

And while they are at it... If they allow for controlling VST's and audio over USB.. You would make 2 steps forward...

Tough i think many people would not be happy if their key required a sepperate screen...

Donny
I think you hit on what the Roland engineers were thinking. IPAD use is so prevelant with musicians they kept the cost down and gave you the opprotunity to use you IPAD with the BK9. I've been putting it off but I am going to msske sn effort to link Unreslbook to my Performances.
The two screens give two different sets of info and if they were combined it would be harder to quickly read what you need. The quality is low. The screen on my BK7M was so much better and I don't know why they didn't use that same technology on the BK9.
I've said its a players keyboard but with some of the Classically oriented pieces Rosetree is producing its great for the studio too.

I always liked it a lot except for navigation.

agreed Bernie and that's always been my point all of today's arranger keyboards need to be urgently redesigned with Player NAVIGATION in Mind starting with Tilt Display being larger on ALL MODELS, optional tablet hookups, etc, etc, ...

Thats what players agree on, seems however that the companies only want to add tilting screens to their high end arrangers.. Its one of those things they sadly use to make high end arrangers the only option that has it all...

And then many high end instruments, kronos, montage, jupiter 80, sd7, audya, kurzweil dont have tilting screens..


I think tyros, pax and oasys where the only keyboards so far with tilting screens, and thats why a seperate screen could be a solution

I think I had a Yamaha that had tilt screen. Maybe PSR 6100 or 6300?

Normally i never thumb...

But i went back to give you thumbs up, i hope more people will do so.

As to using a tablet with apps as a 'substitute' for a screen, it works in a lot of ways, but don't forget sometimes there are limitations if the apps are based on simple midi messages: for example, you cannot change the volumes of two parts independently if both parts are on the same midi channel. Some users experienced this problem with the Roland app for the Integra.

We are not talking about mere midi apps.... We are talking about using the tablet as a full integrated part of the keyboard... I.e. Replacing the screen of the keyboard.. So the keyboard has more room for switches buttons knobs and other controll elements....

That's certainly desirable, I am trying to imagine whether this is difficult to develop or not. Apparently so far most or all apps are midi-based, so this seems to be the cheapest way (but with too many restrictions)... Could the apps be programmed to act as part of the instrument's OS and communicate via USB without midi? Or would it be sufficient to implement enough midi SySex messages to make it behave like an internal screen?